This is the end of a titanic project which was officially inaugurated this Friday. A project which immediately caused concern from the start since, as recalled by the mayor of Amay, Jean-Michel Javaux, it began with the uprooting of numerous trees between Huy and Amay…”I assure you, plantations have been carried out since then”, he noted. This project involves the modernization and upgrading of the Ampsin-Neuville lock site, on the Meuse between the municipalities of Huy and Amay. Almost 6 years after the start of the work, it is coming to an end.
“This project, essential for the development of water transport, was rich in challenges, techniques, ingenuity and, at times, was a real laboratory”underlined Thierry Lesplingart, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Sofico who, as project owner, financed this work amounting to €150 million, in particular thanks to a subsidy from the European Commission of €50 millions of €.
In fact, specific techniques had to be implemented in order to replace the two locks dating from 1958 in order to increase capacity and thus remove, after Lanaye and Ivoz-Ramet, the last bottleneck that remained on the waterway linking Namur to the seaports of Antwerp and the Netherlands.
25,000 tonnes less CO2
The two locks with a capacity of 600 and 2,000 tonnes have been replaced by two larger locks (4,500 and 9,000 tonnes) which reduce the waiting time for boatmen. The operations were carried out in phases in order to maintain river traffic and reduce nuisance throughout the construction site. By adapting infrastructure to the evolution of goods transport by water, Sofico strengthens the attractiveness of the Walloon waterway network and thus contributes to reducing road traffic. “Thanks to the maintenance of navigation during the construction site, in 2023, 11,000 boats passed through the Ampsin-Neuville lock, which represents 7.4 million tonnes of goods transported. These were mainly minerals and construction materials”said Jean-Luc Gosselin, general manager of Sofico.
It is estimated that such infrastructure can relieve road traffic by 460,000 trucks per year and reduce the ecological footprint by 25,000 tonnes of CO2 per year.
Beyond the two locks and the new control station built between them, the project also included new developments that benefit mobility, the environment and the neighbourhood, namely securing the N90 between the Tihange roundabout and upstream of the village of Ombret after moving it; which was necessary to allow access and manoeuvring of large boats; the installation of a new cycle-pedestrian footbridge linking the municipalities of Huy and Amay (and connecting the RAVeL network) as well as the development of the longest fish pass in Wallonia. Recently accessible, this new Corten steel footbridge, just over 600 m long, allows soft modes of transport to cross the national road, overlooks the lock site and the fish pass.
For the record, no less than 18 km of piles were laid on this site, requiring technical and technological feats!It’s a prototyped project in many ways, everything was tailor-made. It is a great pride to have been able to develop these solutions”, confided David Monfort, administrator of the Greisch office.
An exceptional site to preserve
This Saturday, Sofico is organizing a discovery day of the redeveloped lock site. The enthusiasm was such that the 1,000 places available to take part in guided tours on foot or by boat were sold out in just three days! Beyond the possibility of witnessing the passage of a boat through the lock, it will also be an opportunity to discover the fish pass. This artificial river required 120,000 m3 of earthworks. Made up of various areas with different depths, current intensities and compositions, it offers resting, breeding and ascent places for a number of species. The place is magnificent and makes you want to go and relax there to enjoy the tranquility of nature… This is how we see local residents walking their dogs there or we have been able to see people lying down on a sheet or with your feet in the water. Which makes the Mayor of Amay say that it will be appropriate to consider public access in order to maintain the biodiversity of the place. “Dogs not on a leash should not disturb the peace of the species present or find cans and other waste there”he noted.
